A force for peace or domination? U.S. military expansion into Kosovo
By Sara Flounders
Feb. 11, 1999--In the United States, the expansion of the Pentagon into Kosovo is presented as necessary to insure peace in the region. To the rest of the world, the U.S. military expansion in the Balkans looks like an imperialist power securing its conquests.
The Clinton administration, according to the Feb. 2 Washington Post, is preparing to send U.S. ground troops into the Kosovo region of the Yugoslav Federation as part of a 28,000-strong occupation force.
The Yugoslav government has been ordered to accept this "peace-keeping" force by Feb. 6 or be subject to a massive U.S.-led bombardment by NATO forces.
To back up the ultimatum, more than 400 aircraft are on standby in the area. A U.S. aircraft carrier has moved into position off the coast.
At the same time a quieter discussion is under way. The United States has announced that it is going to turn NATO into an aggressive global police force. On Dec. 8 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright presented this plan to a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
These two tracks are in reality one policy. Kosovo sets the precedent for U.S.-led NATO military operations against other countries around the world without the fig leaf of United Nations Security Council authorization. This is an effort to stop a Russian or Chinese veto from curtailing the Pentagon's expansion plans.
In a report in the Dec. 5 International Herald Tribune, William Pfaff wrote of the authorization of military action against Yugoslavia: "Washington sees this as a precedent for a new NATO."
It goes beyond the Balkans, Pfaff wrote, to authorizing actions against "Iraq, Iran and South Asia or other trouble-making rogue states."
Pfaff continued, "Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his latest book (`The Grand Chessboard'), sees the alliance as the instrument of an `integrated, comprehensive and long-term geostrategy for all of Eurasia,' in which NATO would eventually reach Asia."
NATO--a global police force
The sheer scale of this global force and the range of the interventions being projected can be understood by the code words used to describe its purpose.
The proposal says that NATO will be the military force to deal with "rogue nations." This is the term used for any developing nation asserting its independence from the big imperialist powers of Europe or the United States.
Countries that the U.S. State Department has labeled "rogue states" include Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, north Korea and Cuba.
Another code term is "weapons of mass destruction." This has become the justification for several U.S. military attacks.
An example of the kind of military actions to be expected in the future is the U.S. military bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, on Aug. 20, 1998, with dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The primary justification was that this plant supposedly made chemical weapons. Never mind that it was conclusively shown that only essential medical supplies--including most of Sudan's anti-malaria and antibiotic drugs--were produced at the facility.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon holds more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world combined. It is the largest exporter of arms in the world.
Inter-imperialist rivalry
An article in the Nov. 28 New York Times was headlined "A policy struggle stirs within NATO." It described the European governments' concern over their place in a U.S.-dominated global force.
For the last few years, Washington has pushed aggressively to block any other European military formation that corresponded to the emerging economic and political unity of the European Union from arising.
During the three years of war in Bosnia, the United States diplomatically and militarily sabotaged every European effort to broker a truce.
The Dayton Accords--signed at a U.S. Air Force Base in Ohio after 4,000 NATO bombing missions against Bosnian Serb communities--carved Bosnia into three NATO-controlled zones. One zone is under U.S. control, one is under British control, and a third is under French control.
But overall command rests with the U.S. military.
At that time President Bill Clinton publicly pledged that U.S. troops would be home within a year. More than three years have passed since the NATO troops were sent. Yet 32,000 troops remain.
Now the major media are reporting that Pentagon officials think they will be needed for a generation.
NATO troops in Macedonia number at least 3,000. The U.S. bases in Albania, Croatia and Hungary--along with the new bases in Bosnia and at least another 20,000 to 30,000 NATO troops in Kosovo--all show a determination by Washington, the powerful conglomerates and Wall Street to control the entire region for years to come.
In fact, in an essay in the Feb. 1 New York Times, former Rep. Lee Hamilton described how the United States has completely taken over in the Balkans. Hamilton wrote, "America and Americans are everywhere in the states of the former Yugoslavia."
He detailed the wide military occupation that has already taken place as well as the political takeover: "American officials are in leadership positions all over the region. We are practically the proconsul of the former Yugoslavia."
And, Hamilton added, the U.S. government is spending billions of dollars as part of this occupation.
By expanding NATO, the United States is expanding its domination and control in the region over its European imperialist rivals. Washington pushed for the expansion of NATO to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. This moved NATO right up to the borders of Russia.
After pushing through the expansion of the membership of NATO, Washington is now aggressively pushing through the expansion of NATO's mission. The expanded role for a U.S.-led NATO is opposed by the rival European powers because it serves U.S. interests far more than their interests.
A call to impose a three-year military occupation of Kosovo was laid out in an open letter to President Clinton on Jan. 29. It was in an ad in the New York Times headlined "NATO Must Act in Kosovo."
This was a statement made by some of the elite policy makers of the U.S. military-industrial establishment--the ones who move with ease among high government positions, academia and posts in the top military businesses.
Their agenda is not humanitarian.
These are the architects of U.S. foreign and military policy for the last three decades or more. They are responsible for past wars in Central America, Vietnam and the Middle East.
The names include Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Sen. Robert Dole, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Eugene Rostow, Stephen Solarz and Caspar Weinberger.
French expose massacre reports
Both the bombing of Yugoslavia and the occupation by U.S. and European ground troops are being justified in the major media on the basis of an alleged massacre of Albanian civilians on Jan. 15. However, three major French newspapers--Le Monde, Le Figaro and Liberation--have all reported that the massacre in the village of Racak had been faked.
The French newspapers noted the absence of shell casings and blood in the trench where the bodies were found. They also noted the 12 hours that passed between the time the Yugoslav police left the village and the time U.S. Ambassador William Walker and his group of inspectors arrived--a period during which the "Kosovo Liberation Army" controlled the village.
Finally, the French media pointed out that AP TV film taken during the time of the alleged massacre shows an empty village during the time of the fighting. No civilians were present.
The French government called for an "independent, impartial international investigation" of the massacre. A team of Byelorussian, Finnish and Yugoslav doctors was established to perform autopsies on the bodies.
The French media exposé of the alleged massacre reflects the fact that the United States has maneuvered France into the background in the Balkans. But in the last few weeks, France has taken a bigger role in the leadership of NATO forces.
The forced "negotiations" over Kosovo being imposed on the Yugoslav government are slated to take place at the French chateau of Rambouillet outside Paris. In that light, French media criticism may become muted.
Rule by divide and conquer
The KLA forces in Kosovo will also have their hopes dashed. They have accepted covert U.S. and German funding, high-tech weapons, training and logistical support in order to tear the Yugoslav Federation apart and achieve a Greater Albania.
But, as in Bosnia, NATO intervention is aimed at keeping the whole area weak, divided and firmly under the control of the United States and the Big Powers of Europe.
Throughout the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics, nationalist aspirations are being stoked by the Western imperialist powers. In the hands of the predatory powers, this is a weapon used to break up solidarity and regain a vast region of the world that had been part of the socialist camp.
Decades of socialist cooperation had enabled all the different nationalities to build societies that guaranteed full employment, free health care and education and a high cultural level.
Now the entire region is wracked by national strife, vicious wars, massive unemployment, wholesale privatization and the destruction of every social program. Soaring rates of prostitution, drug abuse and alcoholism show the demoralization of millions who once had a productive life.
What the United States and the European corporate rulers are really interested in securing is not peace or reconciliation. They are pursuing sometimes common and sometimes competing goals.
U.S. military expansion into former USSR
In the past, such imperialist intrigue and competition was called the "Great Game." Control of the Balkans is as much about controlling a region of the world as it is about controlling the areas to which it allows access.
The Balkans are the primary route between the oil-rich Black Sea-Caspian Sea region, the Middle East and Europe. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has moved rapidly to take control of this oil wealth.
The fierceness of the competition is hinted at in the report in the Jan. 31 New York Times that the United States may establish a military base in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
The Times reported: "With foreign powers competing for influence in the soon-to-be-rich lands surrounding the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, potentially the richest of them, has made a startling offer. It wants the United States to open a base there.
"The offer could give the United States its first permanent military presence on the territory of the former Soviet Union."
The region is extremely rich in oil and gas resources. Some Western analysts believe that it could become as important as the Persian Gulf. But as it stands right now, the major route for the oil in this region is across the Black Sea to the Danube River through Yugoslavia and into Germany and the rest of Europe.
These are the forces driving NATO's expansion into the Balkans and driving the U.S. military occupation of the former Yugoslavia. With the collapse of the socialist camp, the monolithic U.S. media have never had such a clear field to lie and deceive. The absence of a strong working-class press also makes it hard to break through the propaganda.
The task for working-class activists in the war-torn region, in Western Europe and in the United States, and for all forces truly interested in peace is to expose and challenge the U.S./NATO war plans of expansion, domination and exploitation.
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